César Klein - Woman with books. Original color woodcut, 1920.

Woman with books. Original color woodcut 1920, blue print from Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin 1980. Image size 15 x 11 cm, sheet size 29.5 x 20 cm.

César Klein (1876–1954) was a significant German Expressionist painter, graphic artist, and stage designer. He completed his art studies in Hamburg, Düsseldorf, and Berlin, and in 1910 co-founded the progressive artists' association Neue Secession (New Secession) with artists such as Max Pechstein. He attracted international attention in 1913 with his Expressionist interior design of the Marmorhaus cinema in Berlin. After the First World War, he was one of the co-founders of the revolutionary November Group and shaped the visual style of avant-garde German silent film. Despite an offer from the Bauhaus, he opted for a professorship in Berlin, which was revoked by the National Socialists in 1933. His works were denounced as "degenerate art," and he was subsequently banned from teaching and exhibiting. After the Second World War, he retreated to Schleswig-Holstein, where he created a late, partly abstract body of work until his death.